Repurposing Plastic Water Bottles For Seed Starting

It's probably no surprise that plastic water bottles make perfect seed starting containers-if you want to take the time. They come in all different sizes.

You can also keep the upper part of the bottle to create a mini greenhouse. Just unscrew the cap if it is getting to moist or hot, or take it off altogether and/or use as a little scooper. Be careful not to cut yourself on the plastic edges...

Last night I cut the bottles and created the drainage. We planted five different varieties of basil this afternoon from seeds we purchased at Renee's Garden.

Is it really worth the time? Maybe. Maybe not! But there you go.

Enjoy!

Spring Winter-like Storm and Problem With Swarm of Bees

For everyone wondering about our bees... They are in their new box. A generous couple from Alpine who belong to the San Diego Beekeeping Society drove all the way here to Linda Vista and helped us figure out the problem(s).

1. The Queen was NOT in the box with her bees! We located her on a neighbor's trailer with her troupe of about 50 bees. 
2. Another Queen was dead on the ground with a small group of loyal bees.

It appears that a second swarm came into our yard during this last bout of rain and wind. It may have been dislodged from it's location during the storm.  At some point, our Queen left the temporary box. This is why the bees were in mass confusion - they were looking for her!

This was April 14, 2012. The Queen has left the building.

We will probably never know what really happened...

Because we thought that the bees were highly agitated due to the wind and rain, and because our neighbor was pretty frightened, Saturday night we moved the temporary box to a location across the yard in a more sheltered area. 

Sunday morning it was the same behavior. 


We called the couple who gave us the swarm to see if they knew what was going on. They packed up their bee stuff and came over!


They got the hive moved over to the permanent box, captured the Queen and put her in, and lent us a feeder to place in the hive (they were so hungry). The experience was actually thrilling. You should have seen it when they recognized her! I wanted to cry.

Anyway... That's the short story!


Here is our Flickr stream of all the photos.

UPDATE: Sunday, April 15th

 Boo! Same behavior today :( It appears the Queen left again! Our bees are on the way to Alpine to hopefully get integrated with other bees. It is better than having them fly around the neighborhood in confusion until they die...


We will try again in a couple weeks!
 

Keep Strawberries Fresh in the Fridge Longer

Strawberry season is upon us! Until now, my fresh, organic strawberries have lasted a day or three in the refrigerator, whether home grown or bought from the farmer's market. 


A couple of weeks ago I googled "how to keep strawberries fresh in the refrigerator" and there were some interesting methods. I decided to try the jar method, and must pass along the results! I've been able to keep strawberries fresh in the fridge for over a week!


The method is simple: 

• Don't wash your strawberries. 
• Separate the molding ones, or ones with soft spots or bruising. Place the good ones in a glass jar, preferably wide mouth (easier to get in/out). 
• Top with a paper towel or other absorbent material and put a lid on it.
• Keep the jar on its side and turn the jar daily. 

That's it!

I would love to hear if you have tried this method and if it works for you!

Enjoy :)

Tomatoes Are In, Mulch Is Down!

Our tomatoes are in and we have laid the mulch down. 

It looks SO pretty! 

By the way, the best place to get organic compost/mulch in San Diego is at City Farmers Nursery. 


Enjoy!

Beefsteak - planted about a foot down

Another Beefsteak

Heirloom, Brandywine with Garlic

Heirloom, Brandywine with Garlic

 

Creative Seed Starting and Cuttings Containers

This year more than ever I am finding so many cheap and earth-friendly ways to start my seeds. Giving credit where credit is due, I get a lot of daily inspiration from Life on the Balcony.


Nothing that might be used as a container is getting thrown away in our house (husband sighs).


Our hen and chicks have gone crazy this year. I am planning on moving and separating a lot of the bigger plants. Here, I have used water bottle bottoms to root the baby succulents. I can sell them, or give them as living gifts! 

Using a wooden box top, I have created a pretty little tabletop succulent display.

And, my personal favorite: 

My Keurig Newman's Organics K-Cups as seed starters! I have hated throwing those away, and have actually been cleaning and reusing them. Now they have a great new use!


Because they are shallow, I am beginning with some veggies that I plan on transplanting soon. I don't even rinse the cups out, as I know the extra coffee grounds will nourish the starts. There's a little pocket inside the cup that allows for excellent drainage, plus the little hole in the bottom that the machine puts there.


I am also drilling holes in old cups and vases I don't want.  Yes, Micah, your little plastic tumbler has been repurposed for a more useful life.

Baby dill

I hope you are inspired to use what's around your house as planting containers and seed starters... 

Your turn: What's the most creative container you have made?

Gardening with Kids - Guest Post by Stacy Tornio

 
Stacy Tornio, author of the new book PROJECT GARDEN, offers this guest post about gardening with kids. For more great ideas to do with kids outside, look for Stacy’s book on Amazon. 


Or enter to win a copy here.  (http://www.stacygrows.com/win-a-copy-of-project-garden/) 

When kids take ownership of their garden, it’s a beautiful thing. I’m a big advocate of letting kids pick out their own plants, giving them their own space or just make decisions about their garden in general. It’s just like cooking—if you let kids make it, they’re more likely to eat it. And it’s the same for gardening. If you involve kids in the early process, they’re more likely to take care of it long-term.

One of my favorite ways to do this is by picking out fun plants. You can do this with family names—my daughter Annabelle loves Annabelle’s hydrangea. And we are planning to plant Jack in the Pulpit this year for my son, Jack. Another way to create a fun garden is to choose themed plants. For instance, an all white garden, a daisy garden or one of our favorites—an animal garden.

My first book, a picture book, is about animal plants ( Cathy's Animal Garden ). So I wanted to take a minute to give you a few more plants to try with animal names. I hope you have fun with this. Create your own unique space, and let the kids pick them out!

Animal Plants

·      Butterfly weed
·      Catmint
·      Tiger lily
·      Elephant ear
·      Hens and chicks
·      Leopard’s bane
·      Lambs’ ear
·      Dogwood
·      Bee balm
·      Spider flower
·      Cardinal flower
·      Tickseed
·      Monkey grass
·      Snake’s head fritillary
·      Butterfly bush
·      Dragon’s bloom sedum
·      Foxglove

Don't forget to enter to win a copy of Project Garden today:

 




























Related Post: The Joy of Grandchildren in the Garden

Pick It and Stick It - Propagate by Cuttings 101

Seriously. Half of the non-edibles in our garden have been established by cuttings. 

If you have always wanted to try planting via cuttings, I have the instructions for you:

1. Pick it
2. Stick it

That's it! 

Well, there may be a little more to it than that, but this method is so stinking easy and fun it is ridiculous.

This is just part of a dusty miller plant that grew from one small leaf.
This is after 3 years of growth. 

This is a "baby" dusty miller from the parent. It must have started by a seed from the mother plant

Left: Similar size cutting (about 5 inches long) that started all of the dusty miller on our property

PICK IT: It all started about 3 or 4 years ago when I visited my friend's well-manicured yard. We had recently purchased this property and had not even really decided what we were going to grow. But I wanted something rather than nothing. So my friend started picking little stems and cutting from her plants and bagging them up for me. 


STICK IT: When I got home, I stuck what I wanted in the ground a couple of inches or so, covered it with dirt, and kept it well watered until the drooping cuttings began to show signs of new life. I did not use rooting hormone. I did use some fish emulsion fertilizer. That's it. This is how I got my hen and chicks, lavender, aloes, and of course dusty miller. 

I don't know why I had always hesitated to try this before. It probably boils down to fear that it wouldn't work because I had no idea what I was doing. If you have always wanted to try this, do it!  It cannot hurt anything. It is free.  It is fun!

"Hey, can I have a piece of that?"

Start locally: Why not start with your neighbors? What a way to get neighbors to share established plants. You'll already know it grows well in the neighborhood. We do it all the time. I love to see "my" dusty miller and ornamental garlic over the fence. It is pretty satisfying. Caveat: It is a wise idea to check for disease and find out what kind of growing methods and/or pesticides your neighbor uses.


Pick and stick works GREAT in containers! You can get a pot, plant a cutting and give as gifts! I do this a lot when I don't know where I want to permanently place something.


Of course, the pick and stick method will not work for every plant. If you want to get serious about planting cuttings, and do it "properly," you'll have to look up instructions for each type of plant. Most will have you using rooting hormone. I definitely use rooting hormone when I am propagating plumeria or berries. Or when I am not lazy ;)


Obviously, this article does not address every issue with planting from cuttings. It was not meant to. Hopefully this will just inspire some beginning gardeners to just, well.... pick it and stick it!


Enjoy some of the other 'pick and stick' plants from our garden:

No south facing windows to start seeds indoors

Since I do not have any south facing windows to start my seed indoors, I found this instructable intriguing. Our deck is south facing and could accomodate a version of this mini greenhouse.

http://www.instructables.com/image/FTH3C4YFNNKCPYS/Build-an-Easy-5-x-5-Home-Greenhouse-for-under-25.jpg

If anyone has any ideas along these lines, fire away! I do not want to bother with an indoor light system.

Thanks!

Ps: Here's another idea from the same author :

http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Winter-Summer-Grow-Table/?ALLSTEPS

Homemade Organic Yogurt First Try Success!

I have been wanting to make yogurt for as long as I can remember! My mom used to make it when we lived on our farm in Knightsen, Contra Costa County, California.

She used an electric appliance that looked like a set of capsules.  I found this one on ebay - I think this is the one! 

Anyone remember those? 

But I wanted to make yogurt without having to buy any new gadgets. I am tired of new gadgets and am trying to simplify. 


I have read quite a few blog posts about making homemade yogurt: In the oven, in a crock pot, with a heating pad. The crock pot method seemed to be the easiest one to try, so I gave it a go last night.


Here is the blog post I followed. It's by Nick over at Macheesmo.


The first exciting thing I discovered was that my slow cooker has a temperature probe that displays the current and/or desired temp! What? Who knew? I was wondering what that probe thingy in the junk drawer belonged to. So I downloaded the manual and figured out how to take advantage of that, because:

The most important thing about making homemade yogurt is THE TEMPERATURE. 

It almost goes without saying that everything you used must be sterilized/clean, including your crock pot and all utensils.

The reason why the crockpot is such a perfect tool for yogurt making is because it’s really important to keep the yogurt at a pretty narrow temperature range while it’s doing its thing. I've tried a few different ways, but this one definitely produced the best results. -Macheesmo

Here's my list of ingredients and kitchen equipment:

• 1/2 cup organic whole milk yogurt with live active cultures
• 1/2 gallon whole organic milk (it was a tad under 1/2 gallon)
• Crock Pot
• Temperature probe
• Large towel / blanket
• Colander
• Unbleached cheesecloth
• Bowls, jars, measuring cups, etc.

Step 1: Heat the milk to 180° F slowly. As mentioned, I was able to set it on Low and have it beep when it reached my desired temperature. You do not want the milk to boil or you will have to start over. 

Step 2: After the milk reached 180° I reduced it to 110° by letting the crock pot cool down. Bummer noted: The crock pot would not let me set it to anything below 140°, so I had to keep checking the temp with a thermometer. 

Step 3: Take 1 cup of the heated milk and 1/2 cup of plain yogurt  and mix together in a bowl. Return mixture to rest of milk and stir completely. Make sure the temperature is still between 110° and 120° - this is the trickiest part of the process: Maintaining the temperature between that range. 

My crockpot is really well insulated which definitely helped, but what I did was layer on a large beach towel, folded over a few times to the top of the crockpot. -Macheesmo

Once your crock pot is within that ideal range, turn it off and cover it completely to insulate it and keep it warm. I found that my crackpot was not already well-insulated, so I wrapped it with towel  & wool blanket. I set my timer for 3 hours and went in to check the temperature. I wrapped it up again and left it to the morning. 

Side note: Ever have saga dreams? The ones that never end and keep going and going. I dreamed I was in someone's home that didn't really want me there, and I was making yogurt in her kitchen... She was looking at me like "What are you doing?" LOL.


I awoke the next morning and first thing... made a cup of coffee. Come on! Priorities man! Seriously, I was definitely apprehensive about checking the status of my bacterial concoction, especially when I turned it on and found the temperature to be 82°. What did this mean?!

However, despite my misgivings, and despite all the Internet horror stories of first time homemade yogurt making, the bacteria prevailed! I indeed made yogurt! Real yogurt. Tasty yogurt! 

{Insert happy dance here!}

The next step was mentioned as optional in Macheesmo's post, but the yogurt I made was a bit to watery for me, so I got my cheesecloth and colander out and let it drip for about an hour. 

Now, the fresh yogurt will have some liquid on top. That’s okay. You can try to scoop out any large liquid pools and then stir the yogurt to combine everything well.. -Macheesmo

So, out of 2 quarts milk and 1/2 cup of yogurt, I got 3 1/2 cups yogurt and about 2 cups of whey (For what to do with whey, I am  researching this at www.thekitchn.com/good-question-51-84375). 

Now to get this all down to a science so it feels like second nature and not like a babysitting job :)

Breakfast time! Organic local raw honey & organic blueberries

Oh! Would you like to know how it tastes? Two words:

Yogurt Heaven

Best yogurt ever. I could have eaten it plain. 

Don't forget to read Macheesmo's blog if you are going to try making yogurt. I followed it step by step and had real success! Plus, he answers a lot of questions that might come up during the process.


Enjoy! I mean it!


-Anya

The Garden is Screaming Life! Spring! Color! And I'm Listening.

Got the Spring Gardening Itch yet? No? 


I just have to share the photos from today's walk around the garden.  It screams Life! Spring! Color! Dare you to look and not think about planning or planting YOUR spring garden.


Today's activities: pulling nettles, raking leaves, and figuring out what we are planting this spring. 


It was wonderful to see this ladybug just hatching:

They are everywhere! Our companion planting has really paid off.

Oops, pulled a carrot instead of a weed! I didn't think any of the carrots grew - it was sweet and delish!

Yess!! We will have blueberries. I bought one bush last year to see how it would grow in our yard. I think we'll add 3 or 4 more. 

We dug these up out of our "food not lawns" area out front. Threw a piece of it on the side yard for possible soil erosion issues, and it looks so pretty today:

Love purple and orange. Here's some status:

Our lovely, loyal dwarf Anna apple tree :)

This grass is self seeding - it is popping up all over our backyard. I love it. 

Cannot wait for strawberries!

Teeny cactus:

Beets are growing, and a few are ready to pick. This was our first time growing beets. Only about 1/4 of them sprouted. 

Saw this cute little red butt spider hopping around. Love spiders in the garden!

Our chile manzano's first Spring blossom.

I sure hope you've enjoyed this walk around the garden as much as I have!

Enjoy!

-Anya

Got Kale? What to do before it goes bad...

When our local community got its own farmer's market last year, it was a "Yippee!" time for me. I would do a happy dance all the way to and fro each Thursday. I think I still do :) I could now regularly feed my green smoothie addiction with dinosaur kale - my favorite. It is great for smoothies and kale chips. A few times, however, I overestimated how much kale our household would actually use that week, and found my kale, which I consider gold, turning an awful shade of yellow... 

A lot of kale can make an expensive addition to your compost pile

Although fresh (and local) kale is best for green smoothies, and offers the most nutrition, I figured that freezing the overabundance before it went bad was better than an expensive addition to the compost pile. So after making some kale chips, I tried a variety of ways to freeze and store the kale.

Kale chips are easy to make and surprisingly delicious!
A little coconut oil (or olive oil) and sea salt is all you need.

First I tried blending the kale in our Vitamix, put it in a jar, then froze it. While it did freeze, getting portions out of the huge frozen mass proved too frustrating to be practical. There is still a jar of frozen kale our freezer. Yeah...


Next, I tried freezing the kale in shot glasses. Again, that proved impractical due to having so many shot glasses in the freezer all over the place. Ice cube trays would be too small and too much work. 


The solution that finally worked is outlined below. We've done it twice now. Another "Yippee!" moment and happy dance :)

Blend up your kale. If you have a Vitamix, fill it up with kale - no need to chop it, just stuff it in. Add a little water. I added about a cup of water. Blend on high, using your tamper to push it through the blades. Only blend it enough to liquefy. Small pieces of kale should still be visible.

Pour into cupcake tins, leaving about 1/4 - 1/2 inch at top (The second time I did this, I thought it might be better to use cupcake paper - the photo below shows that. NOT necessary. It made no difference and just created a waste).

Cupcake paper NOT necessary

Put the cupcake tin in your freezer until firm, 30 minutes to an hour.

The trickiest part of this whole process is removing the frozen kale from the tin. We found that placing the tin on a hot stove top for a few seconds loosens the discs enough to get them out easily. Don't leave it on the stove but for a few seconds, or the kale will liquefy. 

Kale discs

Place the discs into a freezer bag, or better yet, vacuum seal them.I didn't feel like getting my vacuum sealer out. :P

Put the discs into freezer bags, or use a vacuum sealer

Your kale is now, not wasted, but ready for your next green smoothie! Or soup. Or ???

Single servings of kale ready to use!

I'm a visual person. So, this little outline might seem simplistic, but hopefully it will help you see how easy it is to preserve your kale. You could use this process with about any green. Try it with spinach, borage, beet tops, radish tops, you name it. The concentrated nutrition of these greens is too good to waste on the compost pile! 

-Anya @MyGardenHaven